


Mutually Assured Destruction

by mrslovelace



Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Daniel Jacobi POV, M/M, Song fic, a roller coaster that only goes down, but honestly could be angstier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-06
Updated: 2018-01-06
Packaged: 2019-03-01 07:24:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13289940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mrslovelace/pseuds/mrslovelace
Summary: They were all about push and shove only to crash back together in a magnificent overture of joy, pride and desire.





	Mutually Assured Destruction

**Author's Note:**

> This is a story modeled after the songs It Will Come Back and Angel of Small Death & The Codeine Scene by Hozier, so if you want get in the mood you can listen to them in a loop like I did for 5 consecutive days.

A man walks into a bar. Jacobi inwardly laughed prematurely at his own joke. The sound that came out of his mouth was something between a snort and a sigh. A man walks into a bar and buys expensive scotch for this hopeless creature lost in a mist of nothingness of its own creation.

Their conversation was hazy, at least after he lost count of the shots of cheap booze he’s taken to balance that Balvenie, more a dream than anything else. Despite the other few faces, sounds and tastes he only remembers that man leaning into him, all sultry tones and interested smiles. Jacobi poured his life story into that delirium of a man with no second thought because he insisted, payed close attention to him, which was a courtesy no one bothered to have for some time now and because it felt exactly like the right thing to do. It was the kind of bizarre experience one has past 3am out on the streets somewhere, the exact time frame where everyone is simultaneously your greatest friend, your truest lover and favorite therapist. Except when it happened it was just past 2pm, he was still way too sober at the time and this entity sook him out, not the other way around.

Jacobi was acutely aware of the strangeness of their predicament, that this man had a very specific interest in mind that did not involve them in a bed or nearest surface sturdy enough to support them. No, the man was too focused on something else for that. He knew exactly where he stood, what he wanted and Jacobi never envied someone so much before in his life.

What other choice did he really have besides seeking the answers to all the questions that man created in his head? Besides, he was very much unemployed and not so much in a position where he could refuse an employer that went through the trouble of finding him in that particular corner between Nowhere Street and Rock Bottom Lane.

The drunken wonder lasted until the very last few minutes in a Goddard Futuristic waiting room before meeting a woman called Rachel Young, who could only be described as very efficient looking. Expecting a thorough interview, he found himself pleasantly surprised to find only a well-rehearsed speech about the vitality of confidentiality the company’s niche demands, complete with a subtle enough threat that could either mean a lawsuit or a sudden death that would have an uncanny similarity with an unfortunate accident. Small pile of paperwork dealt with, Jacobi was guided by a different employee to see his workshop, meet his new colleagues, through testing sites and the other relevant parts of his workplace to end in the office of his new commanding officer, Warren Kepler.

The first time Kepler appeared in his workshop to tell him one of his stories Jacobi reacted with genuine admiration and satisfaction, thanks to his nagging curiosity to know exactly who Warren Kepler was. He even thought, in a quiet little corner of his mind that maybe his commanding officer might be flirting with him. He sure sounded like he was trying to impress someone and Jacobi was the only person in the room. Jacobi smiled, listened attentively throughout the whole story, making questions at the right times, contributing actively to Kepler’s well woven narrative and finally punctuating it with a “Wow”.

By the Antique Salt and Pepper Shakers Story, he realized that Kepler was most definitely not flirting. No one flirts with a story so ridiculous unless they didn’t know what they were doing. Kepler seemed like the kind of person who always knew exactly what to do. It took so far as the Funk Band Story to realize that he didn’t care at all who was listening, he just enjoyed the sound of his own voice. Jacobi deflated after he realized that. Of course Kepler wasn’t flirting with him, what an idiotic notion. Actually, it made so much more sense that he was just a self-centered prick seeking a whiling audience to show off. Kepler got so engrossed into his own fantasy that he didn’t even notice if Jacobi was off-handedly grunting at the correct times to punctuate the story properly.

Jacobi decided once and for all to bury whatever this embarrassing juvenile crush meant for him and focus on their professional relationship. It was stupid, dangerous and absurdly gratuitous. There was nothing leading him to that but his own misconceptions. He kept his answers short, sarcasm fueled as always but distant, and they functioned just as well as before. There was no need to complicate everything with an awful game of who-looks-away-first in between beats either on a field mission or when he came to his workshop to tell one of his absurd stories to fuel his ego.

Their very professional relationship was running perfectly smooth, until this high risk mission where Jacobi, having lost completely his communication with Kepler and other agents in the mission, autonomously setup a perfectly timed series of explosions just in time to simultaneously destroy their target and distract Kepler’s captors long enough for him to subjugate them. On the way back, Kepler had the most satisfied smile one could have when he exclaimed an “Outstanding job Jacobi!” placing his hand at first on his right shoulder, then possessively on his neck in an airplane with at least other five people from the extraction team. _“Why would he do something like that?_ ” Jacobi remembers thinking, as he melted into Kepler’s light strokes on his neck outside of everyone else’s view.

Kepler told and retold what happened using the same voice he used with his stories so Jacobi knew he was showing off the efficiency of his asset and Jacobi wanted to resist but his compliments were bliss and his touch was heaven. After all, he may not know who Kepler was underneath overly enunciated speeches about being the elite of the elite and an exponential ambition to be the best at everything he does, but at least now Jacobi knew his cologne was expensive enough to cover the smell of smoke and gunpowder, lingering for days after washing his uniform. Jacobi now knew Kepler’s kiss tasted like longing and went down to the pit of his stomach like expensive scotch.

Every now and then, Jacobi got a glimpse of what was beneath, mostly things that made Kepler’s mask fall for half a second (a spot on his neck, an unexpected answer, the timing which Jacobi met his hips, a well-executed order without instructions longer than a sentence), which wasn’t an easy task in the first place but these moments were there and Jacobi never pressed to know more. They could be casual if they wanted too. No, he didn’t miss the warmth when he woke up in the morning. He couldn’t care less if his harmless, mildly flirtatious tone was coldly brushed away in public, after all nobody in the office must know. They were all about push and shove only to crash back together in a magnificent overture of joy, pride and desire.

After the anniversary Jacobi’s recruitment, they shifted into a resemblance of a relationship on account of the added presence of the voice of reason known as Alana Maxwell. Between similar sense of humor and a never ending streak of successful missions, she became the one whom Jacobi shared inside jokes with, the one who piled into him when it was cold during a mission because she never felt more comfortable with someone else’s touch before, the one who Jacobi would cover for when they were trying to escape some arbitrary mandatory socializing event and vice versa.

She was the one there to see the bad days firsthand, when she had to pick Jacobi up somewhere because he was too drunk to drive home, when he tried to hide the hurt in his eyes with sarcasm or aloofness or laughter. Jacobi was a horrible liar. She wasn’t that far ahead of him in the lying game either, but it was clear as day to her when he lied, so she made a point in occasionally voicing her thoughts on the matter, leaving abundantly clear to Jacobi that whatever he had with Kepler was bad for his health.

Both parties involved in this emotional wreck she had to live with – one which she wasn’t at all equipped to deal with – were so terribly afraid to expose themselves that they would rather continue to fuck each other senseless and then pretend nothing was happening even though one of them at least was already in it heart and soul with no way of turning back. And yet again, Jacobi didn’t ask for more of Kepler because Maxwell was there to pick him up and put him back on the tracks.

Something did seem more balanced between them, though. Sometime before their training to fly eight light years away to the Hephaestus, Kepler started leaving fresh meals in Jacobi’s kitchen before leaving. At work, sometimes he would flirt back – it made Maxwell quietly roll her eyes and Jacobi pretend he wasn’t blushing by hiding his face behind heavy machinery. In the darkness of his bedroom, Kepler started telling stories in a different tone. The stories themselves were different too, not so… grand. He told Jacobi where he learned how to cook, why he liked certain cologne, why he stopped smoking. That’s when Jacobi knew exactly how dangerous this mission was, that maybe they wouldn’t come back. Not because Kepler was opening up per se, but because it felt like he was starting with the small things about himself, the one’s that didn’t demand compromise so he could leave the deepest parts of him hidden until they came back.

And then Maxwell wasn’t there anymore. While Kepler rambled about contingency plans and an assortment of ways to allegedly get them out of this situation, even though they were going up against something that had vanished with his hand in a literal snap of their fingers, Jacobi stared blankly ahead of him and registered only the seemingly endless white noise-like quality of Kepler’s voice and noticed how what once was a source of his respect and admiration, now struck a chord of pure unaltered resentment, setting him in a loop of anger aggravated by every single unfortunate word that poured from his mouth.

Jacobi wanted him to shut his stupid mouth for once, to admit that he made a mistake because he pushed too far when the stakes were too high or to at least say that he regretted not informing him and Maxwell properly. He needed proof that this man he devoted the last six years of his life to wasn’t a starving empty abyss who thrived in other’s blind obedience to pour their essence into it with nothing in return. Instead, Kepler took, and took, and took, justifying his actions through saturated speeches about how the mission was need-to-know and _he_ _didn’t need to know._ Suddenly he wanted more than anything to spit back in his face how they were way past the concept of _compartmentalization_ , how his outrage wasn’t about not knowing every single detail of their mission. Not by a long shot.

When someone dies on your watch, you apologize so people who cared about them can properly grieve. When you know the reason why the man you’ve been sharing a bed with for years is in existential agony, barely breathing, sleeping or overall functioning through the nausea of believing you’re an impostor in your own flesh, you maybe try to help for the sake of decency and cordiality. You don’t reduce someone’s death to a bump in the perfect road that was your plans. You don’t assume someone else’s mental state after a traumatic event based on condescension shrouded as faith.

Kepler squared his shoulders on the other corner of the room, reaching ever so slightly with his tied hands to reach Jacobi’s, but his eyes believed every word that came out of his mouth. There was no attempt of empathy in those eyes, no regret or second guessing, only confidence and a yearning for physical reassurance that they were in this together and Jacobi wanted to scream that _he couldn’t do that_. He couldn’t let him in only to shut him out in the cold again, feed him small intimacies whenever it was convenient and push him out right after, he couldn’t pretend nothing of value was torn from Jacobi because he miscalculated and then demand loyalty. But Jacobi knew for a fact that this place was probably bugged, and he didn’t need the Hephaestus crew to have even more leverage on possibly making his life even more unbearable, so he used different words than the one’s he was thinking.

“I think you’re right Colonel. There is a big picture, and right now it’s the first time I’m realizing where you fit into it”. And he did. Now he knew not only where Kepler’s priorities lie, but also that he was, in fact, a black hole of a person. The worst part of it was: if Kepler was a blind pawn as he proved himself to be, what did that make of Jacobi?

Well, Jacobi thought he had met his line, and while his relationship with Kepler did cross a line then and there, he certainly couldn’t anticipate mind control and apocalyptic master plans. So he refused Kepler’s concern, because finding him responsive only on command was probably exactly where Kepler wanted him, Jacobi thought with a stab in his heart he didn’t allow himself to acknowledge, but this new situation wasn’t only about them anymore. It was about not following orders of two maniacs with illusions of grandeur that could very well come to be a reality soon, bringing absolute desolation in its wake. _That_ he could ask of Kepler.

In the end, he went down for them and Jacobi wouldn’t have known if Hera hadn’t told him and the others about Kepler’s altercation with Rachel. In the end, he went down with a bottle of scotch and finally, _finally_ living up to the faith Jacobi had deep down for him.

Alone in an isolated part of the Sol, as tears ran down his face, he screamed with an urge to blow something up just so the noise would cover the sobs he couldn’t control, so he could see outer destruction comparable to his inner wreckage. Yet again, Kepler reeled him in with no condition to keep him, now for a whole different reason.

 “It’s… alright. You can’t save everyone, I suppose.” he later tells Minkowski. He tells himself too. He regrets what they were and mourns what they could have been as people, as a team, as something more.

 

**Author's Note:**

> OKAY, HI. I'm very excited to be back into writing fanfiction, last time I posted something I was 13, so any kind of feedback will make my day brighter. English isn't my native language, so I apologise in advance for any quirkness that may have occured in this chapter. 
> 
> I think I aimed for angsty and hit melodramatic but oh well, I grew up watching mexican telenovelas so... yeah, that's that.


End file.
